Humanitarian archive for 2016
New Flying Eye Hospital takes to the skies for its first programme
In June of this year, international eye care charity Orbis launched their new Flying Eye Hospital, a powerful tool helping the medical community combat preventable blindness through sustainable methods. On board an MD-10 aircraft, a fully accredited ophthalmic facility can...
Paediatric ophthalmology training in Malawi through the Vision 2020 LINKS Programme: a decade of partnership
Blinding eye disease in children can lead to a lifetime of dependence and non-productivity for the person afflicted. Sometimes a relatively simple condition such as a refractive error can lead to irreversible disability that could, if caught in time, have...
Making a life-changing difference in Bangladesh
It has always been a desire of mine to volunteer in a ‘vision aid’ type project abroad, but due to various factors I had not been able to fulfil this desire until very recently. A gentleman called Mizanur Rahman (founder...
The VISION 2020 LINKS Programme: Cascading leadership training in Calabar, Nigeria
The VISION 2020 LINKS Programme has initiated ‘LEAD FORWARD’, an innovative leadership development project incorporating a commitment to cascade training and participate in achievable quality or service improvement projects. The project provides opportunities to apply leadership skills in practice as...
Cementing a VISION 2020 LINK partnership between Blantyre and Liverpool – building capacity for DR services alongside research
Malawi is a small land-locked country in eastern Africa with a growing population of over 17 million people. About 45% of the population is aged 14 or under; only 5% are aged 60 or over. The gross national income per...
Launch of the Diabetic Retinopathy Screening Service in UHWI Jamaica
At 2.55pm on Wednesday 16 March 2016 the first patient was screened and given her results in the new nurse-led Diabetic Retinopathy Screening (DRS) Clinic at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), Kingston, Jamaica. This was the result...
Strengthening eye care services in Botswana through the Botswana-Addenbrooke’s Abroad VISION 2020 LINK
The VISION 2020 LINK between Botswana and Addenbrooke’s Abroad has been running for 10 years. With support from the VISION 2020 LINKS Programme two-way exchange visits were undertaken leading to the formation of the first formal international partnership under Addenbrooke’s...
VISION 2020 LINKS Programme: building capacity for eye care services in Nigeria through leadership and skills development
The Lagos-Bolton VISION 2020 LINK started in December 2011. It is one of 29 LINKS now running in the VISION 2020 LINKS Programme [1]. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, with a current population of 178 million, projected...
